And so He’s kind of, over the years, just kind of stripped away all the self-sufficiency. He has me in a role now that there’s, there’s nothing I can do to make, you know, I raise money. And that’s up to God’s dealing in people’s hearts. It’s a, it isn’t up to whether I ask correctly or, and honestly, I never actually ask, I just build relationships, and let God do the rest for them. And I think that’s the adventure we get to be on with Him is to take ourselves out of the equation and look to Him and let Him show us what He’d have us do, in each situation and it can look different in each relationship or whatever.

And then watch Him move.

I’ve realized, I mean, so my first response was, it was all about me, I did all the right things. Now, my response is not that, it’s what are You doing? And how can I enter into that with You and be a part of that with You? And what does that look like? Yeah, because I know, it’s not about me now. I mean, I probably, I probably default to that sometime. But that when I’m really pressing in, I know that it’s not about me. It’s about Him. But I think that’s why I approached my kids differently. Rather than telling them what to do, because it was the right thing to do. I said, Well, let’s talk about that. What does that look like? And what could that look like? And so, which helped them make decisions, not always the right decisions, but eventually the right decisions. And to see that because they weren’t getting beat over the head with the gospel, they were being loved. And I think that that was the transition, you know, is that it wasn’t about what you do. It’s about who you are, and how you trust Him. And there’s, that’s a whole different thing there. But I never saw it before. I just didn’t. I just thought it was about what you do. Do the right things. 

I realized that God can use the pain that I’d walked through to talk to other people about life is not necessarily going to look like you think it’s gonna work. And that’s okay. But you can lean into Him and trust Him and grow in that, and you will be better for it. And He will use you in somebody else’s life along the way. When I went, started going to a church that we know each other from, they didn’t know what to do with me because I was divorced. And so they just said, well, you just need to be hanging out with the single women. I was 50. And they were like, in their 20s and early 30s. And I was like, Okay, I guess I’ll hang out with the young women. And, but which I thought was kind of punishment, in a way. But it really wasn’t, it was God’s gift to me, because He has allowed me to be in the lives of women, to be able to share some of these things that I’ve learned along the way. I wish somebody had shared with me, when I was young before I was married, you know all the stuff. And so now I’ve seen the fruit of that in different lives. So that’s, that was a gift. They didn’t know they were giving me a gift when they told me to hang out with single women. But they were. And it really did. That, that has changed the trajectory of my life.

Because that’s the real life we’re living. It’s not in this tied up in a pretty bow life. I know there are people that seem to have those lives, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t what their life really is. It’s just what they let you see. And I’d much rather be who I am in the good, the bad and the ugly. Then put off this front that I’ve got it all together. Because it’s in the authenticity that we have real relationships with people. You can’t have those relationships when you’re putting on a show like you’ve got it together. And the reality is none of us do. None of us know it all together. If we put up this front and we kind of act like we’ve got it all together, we’re just, we’re doing that because we think nobody’s gonna love us if they see who we really are. And the reality is, when they see who we really are, they love us more because they know they’re broken. And it’s the best thing ever, just to be who you are.

When I went to Africa for the first time, I went with the young, the girls that I did ministry with, and I mean I told them, “I can’t do that, y’all are young, I am old.” I gave all the excuses. I was taking care of my mom at the time and I was like, I gotta have somebody to take care of my mom. I can’t afford to go and I can’t ask for money. You guys can do that because you’re young. And they said, “We’re just gonna ask God to remove every one of those barriers.” And He totally did. Like, He provided a caregiver to come stay with my mom. He provided the money like that (snaps). It just came in so fast. And then was the third. No, I am still old, I was still the same. He didn’t change that. But I went and it changed my life. 

I was working at a university, and we were raising a lot of money for things like fountains, and they needed $65,000 to house 12, AIDS orphans. And the disparity between a million dollars for a fountain and $65,000 to help kiddos that don’t have parents anymore was like, I just couldn’t believe it. And I just said, Okay, Lord, if You will, this is on the flight home. I said, if You will open doors for me to raise funds. I’ve never raised a dime, right, except for the money to go on the trip. Like I worked for a vice president of development. I, I got him in the door to raise money, I didn’t do that. And I said, if You’ll open doors for me to tell Your story and raise funds for these kids or other people who need it, to be a voice for the voiceless, I will leave this job where I have a secure salary. I’d walked through my divorce and breast cancer with this group of people. And they had been a family for me, and it was like, I will, but I’ll leave. And I’ll do this if this is what You want. And He totally did. He just opened the doors for me to do this. And it’s just, it’s really been beautiful to see. And it isn’t, it isn’t that I have to twist anybody’s arm to do it. I just tell their stories and just love the people well. I raise funds for a ministry that empowers the poor in Uganda, refugees and Ugandans, with the gospel with economic empowerment every day, and I love what I get to do.